I recently claimed to possess the attribute of intense laziness, at least in regard to a particular activity. (Not that one — a different activity.) The question was raised about whether that combination is an oxymoron. As I see it, no — It’s not even a regular moron.

I should declare right off that I’m an engineer. As such, I am in pursuit of the usual engineering goal of getting machines to do work for me. This has some advantage to me as there are other people and groups who are similarly inclined, and they have been willing to pay me cash money to pursue our shared, or at least overlapping, goals. Of course, employers are inclined to give me other things to do that I’d rather not, so I end up with even more engineering to do. But they let me go home at nights and on weekends, as a rule.

The majority of my work is software- and/or data-based these days, since that involves much less exposure to lifting heavy things (except for the larger computer chassis), hot things like soldering irons, and sharp things like table and chain saws. The downside is that other people can use computer tools to make work for me very quickly. I’m not certain I’m winning this race.

But back to the question of laziness — As I see it, it’s a mismatch in priorities. I call myself lazy, at least with respect to any given activity, whenever my interest in doing it falls below someone else’s interest in having me do it. And my interest in avoiding that activity may require intense application of engineering to get some machine (or another person) to do it for me, or even the more basic avoidance techniques like strategic disappearances, substitution of unassailable alternatives, etc.

I would note that indolence is simply a form of laziness, though arguably a degenerate case of it. It’s the active pursuit of one’s preference for doing nothing, rather than whatever someone (or everyone) else wishes one were doing instead. It generally doesn’t advance engineering or produce any visible benefit to anyone but the indolent. It can be intense. And wonderful.